Alex Ossola

The Trump administration's criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is drawing criticism from some lawmakers and former officials.

Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and other former officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations defended Powell.

They said the investigation was an attempt to undermine the Fed's independence to set monetary policy.

Senator Tom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, also criticized the investigation and said he would block any new nominee to the Fed until it's resolved.

Tillis doing that could make it harder for Trump to influence the central bank.

Meanwhile, Kevin Hassett, a top White House economic advisor and a finalist for President Trump's nomination to succeed Powell as Fed chair, said that the DOJ investigation is a move to promote accountability.

In an interview last night, Trump said he didn't know about the Justice Department's subpoena and that any criminal investigation isn't related to disagreements the White House has had with Powell over interest rates.

The stock market reaction to the Powell investigation was muted, with the three indexes all finishing slightly higher.

The Nasdaq led gains and closed up 0.3%.

But what's known as the debasement trade got a revival.

That's when investors worried about inflation sell the U.S.

dollar and buy up gold and silver as safe havens.

The dollar today slipped compared with a basket of foreign currencies, while gold rose 2.5% and silver jumped more than 7%.

Google Parent Alphabet rose above $4 trillion in trading today, joining a small club of companies to cross that mark.

Google's pulled ahead in the AI race with its latest Gemini 3 model.

And in an example today of Google's abilities, Apple said Gemini would power a new, more personalized version of Siri that's coming later this year.

The company finished the day at $4.009 trillion.

Paramount continues to push its hostile bid for Warner Bros.

Discovery.

Paramount said today that it plans to launch a proxy fight for Warner's board seats and also filed a lawsuit seeking to force Warner to release more information about its merger agreement with Netflix.